Library Video of the Week, January 21, 2013.

Critics weren’t kind to this movie
when it came out, for some reason.Maybe
it seemed too dark, or disjointed.Certainly there is a sharp break from the beginning half of the movie to
the battles at the end.Willis stars as
Lieutenant Waters, a Navy SEAL who leads his team into the Nigerian jungle to
save four American doctors and nurses from being killed by one side of a raging
civil war.The doctor, however, won’t go
without her patients, so the SEALs involuntarily force her and the others onto
the helicopter for extraction.

On the way out, Waters sees
the advancing army burning and murdering as it comes.Suffering a sudden pang of conscience, he
decides to do the right thing, turns the helicopters around and lands to
protect the 70 or so refugees from the hospital.His superiors, however, will not send the
copters back, forcing the SEALs, the American medical staff and the refugees to
flee on foot to safety in Cameroon, pursued by an overwhelming force.The dialog might be standard and the battles
seem like Hollywood intruding on a thoughtful movie, but the tone and scenes,
the camera-work and the emotional weight of the characters are all remarkable